Skill-based matchmaking should only be in league play. I'm sorry but it's very tiresome to play people with a similar skill level. Yes, it is competetive gameplay, butif I wanted to play competitively I would play in league matches. If I just want to get on and have some fun, stress free...games I should have the option to do so. I've been a 3+KDR player in every call of duty...It's not fun playing against other players that are near that skill level ALL THE TIME. I'm at a 2kdr in balck ops but my god it's been a pain in the ass to get even close to that. And with all of the lag problems in this game it's near impossible to keep up (again..going against other simillarly skilled players). Not to mention, getting matched with similar skilled players means I have a much smaller pool of players to get into games with. Tthat means the likelyhood of me getting into a game with a decent connection is slim to none(living in the north west...). Lag comp in this game is absolutely horrendous. I can't even count how many times I've been shot around a corner..Lag comp on my screen is like playing hardcore...Literarlly 1 bullet is a death yet it takes me 4-5 hit markers to take anyone down. There is NO gradual damage taken...it's just instant death.

Anyways...removing skill-based matchmaking would lower competitive play in normal games, but it would sure be a hell of a lot more fun getting into a lobby that isn't full of try hard ass holes pulling out dragon ball z lag moves to insantly kill me. I just want a break from all of the frustration!

It's based on score per minute. So if you have anything over 250ish the players get very annoying to play against. I've been playing domination lately and my score per minute on there is around 370... so yeah, you can be top in the lobby (i usually am as well...) but if your score per minute is lower you'll be playing against players with lower score per minute.

The numbers are only low in league play because you can continue your progression of ranking up unlocking things. A grave mistake on their part. Otherwise it would appear more popular. It is what the community wants.

I would like to know the percentage of above 1 KD players on BO2. I know that the majority have less than 1. If we are less than 10% then maybe it's our distance from each other that's causing the lag.

I just want some better connected games. The first week or two were good to go, but after that it went downhill. I assume it was all due to everyone playing Nuketown 24/7 (which was the mode I was playing as well), but now it is hard to kill anyone anymore these days. I could care less who I play against, everyone has their good and bad days, I just don't want to lose due to connection issues.

Just have a friend with crappy stats be party leader, and that seems to help. I wish I had a friend with crappy stats, but I still get put in lobbies against morons around 1/4th of the time, and I have a decent score per minute, so it doesn't put you up against tryhards all the time. Just get better. I've had to switch up my tactics a little, but i'm doing well, and if you're any good at this game, you can too.

skill based matchmaking is the most stupid thing they could possibly do. You cant just force people to play tryhards all the day. I bet if someone was watching this game be developed it would be the exact same thing as watching a retard try and eat a bowl of pudding with chopsticks.

Skill-based matchmaking should only be in league play. I'm sorry but it's very tiresome to play people with a similar skill level. Yes, it is competetive gameplay, butif I wanted to play competitively I would play in league matches. If I just want to get on and have some fun, stress free...games I should have the option to do so. I've been a 3+KDR player in every call of duty...It's not fun playing against other players that are near that skill level ALL THE TIME. I'm at a 2kdr in balck ops but my god it's been a pain in the ass to get even close to that. And with all of the lag problems in this game it's near impossible to keep up (again..going against other simillarly skilled players). Not to mention, getting matched with similar skilled players means I have a much smaller pool of players to get into games with. Tthat means the likelyhood of me getting into a game with a decent connection is slim to none(living in the north west...). Lag comp in this game is absolutely horrendous. I can't even count how many times I've been shot around a corner..Lag comp on my screen is like playing hardcore...Literarlly 1 bullet is a death yet it takes me 4-5 hit markers to take anyone down. There is NO gradual damage taken...it's just instant death.

Anyways...removing skill-based matchmaking would lower competitive play in normal games, but it would sure be a hell of a lot more fun getting into a lobby that isn't full of try hard ass holes pulling out dragon ball z lag moves to insantly kill me. I just want a break from all of the frustration!

While I agree that skill based MM is BS, I find it funny that you don't like playing with people in your own skill set. You have been fed a dose of reality in that you aren't a 3KD player at all but a 2KD player.

Personally I think being a 2KD player makes you a very very good player, and I wish I had your KD as mine is just 1.04. lol

I've always wondered why good players wave their KD around as if it is a badge of honour and then complain about n00bs. Without those n00bs to stomp, your KD goes from 3 to 2 in the drop of a hat.

It made me chuckle reading the posts in here that don't think skill-based matchmaking is in this game. Just to be clear, this is a Black Ops 2 forum...

All of my lobbies are filled with prestige 1-7 players with high SPM and average-good k/d's. I don't think I've even seen any split-screeners and never play against people I consider to be 'noobs' - when you consider that players like this make up a good number of the community, either I am just the unluckiest guy alive or skill-based exists.

While there is some benefit to this system, the drawbacks are far more relevant. Personally, I play COD to chill and have fun. When every game feels like an mlg try out I get very worked up (Note that I'm not neccessarily struggling, but it is hard work). I am not having any fun and I'm certainly not chilling out.

Why have league play for exactly this purpose and then effectively turn public lobbies into a psuedo league anyway?

This game simply doesn't suit me right now and I'm not sure I'm going to be coming back.

If they have skill based matchmaking in standard game modes they don't implement it very well.

On 1 game I played yesterday in the lobby at the start of the game I was the only one on my team over level 17, there was a level 1 player with no time played a level 2, a split screen pair at level 14 and someone at level 17, I'm prestige 1 level 42.

Every player on the other team was 1 st prestige level 30 or over so I don't think the system of skill based matchmaking exists in normal modes as this is normally the sort of team I end up with, my SPM is overall about 173 and although that's not great it was still better than most of the other team was.

You right, its not implemented very well. It appears to be based on SPM and seems to around 100 greater or less than your SPM (mine is 270 and this seems pretty constant.

The big exception is when you play against a party, in that instance it searches based on the party leaders SPM. Whenever I notice a guy with a very high SPM he'll be in a party with someone else who'd doing the searching :-)

I'd prefer it if they could remove Skill Based Matchmaking but I suspect that it's not that easy to do.

I'm with you on that - I play some TDM (my SPM in this is around 280) I also leave many games right now due to extreme bad connection I suffer.

In essence all I'm disagreeing about is the skill-based system that is in place. It is highly unlikiely that we would ever meet in a game even if you lived next door to me... our 'skill' levels are too different.

Just to be clear, I'm not insulting you and don't assume to be better than you, this is just how the game/system interprets a players skill.

I have a kid I know (family friend) on my friend list who played 1 game of FFA.. He went 25-10 or something close to that. Now his "spm" is like 659 or something. Now he is ranked like top 5000. But the kid is super terrible and won't play FFA ever again because of his "global rank" and thinks he is a boss. Lol using spm is strange. You'd think they'd want people I keep playing their game. As you go up the leader boards the time played goes down. Because obviously the more you play the lower your spm will be until you hit you "average" which takes quite some time..unless you only play FFA once and dominate then it pads your spm for the remainder of your career.

Not to mention my spm was reset when the leader board crap was going on so after a couple days played my career spm said only 60 :/ it was originally like 600 and now it's like 350-400 (can't remeber off the top of my head)

Tl;dr spm is dumb and promotes less playing just dominate one game type once and never play again = top of global leader boards.

This is one of many reasons why the system does not work. Add to that the fact that some people play differently depending on mood, this is a terrible idea.

For example, I like to go for gold guns, requiring headshots - attempting to do this after playing seriously is tough because I'm matched based on my set standard. Playing in a way which puts me below my standard results in me struggling against good players. It takes away the element of fun when experimenting with classes/loadouts or playing for challenges etc.

How long people play and their position in a leaderboard doesn't matter to me, I just want to have some fun. Judging me by SPM or K/D is ridiculous in public lobbies.

I played pretty much all day yesterday. I was getting the swat 556 gold camo which is definitely not my best gun, but I was really getting destroyed. I stated checking the keyboard before each game and noticed I was always in the bottom four in spm. After about 20 games I'd misery, it started putting me in lobbies consistently that were a lot closer to my spm and stated being able to actually have some fun. I am so tired of having to put on try hard pants to play this game!

I only play hardcore and, because they've decided to limit the number of game types, I only play hardcore TDM. My SPM is just 166 as a result, yet I was getting thrown in with the lions yesterday, with guys who had SPMs of over 500. I'd play one game and go 28-4 and then I'd go 13-15 in the next one.

It's the inconsistencies that hack me off the most. The game just isn't the same from one match to the next, regardless of play style.

It is in public play (sill based mm) even vondaharr said himself "this game is the end of pub stomping thanks to skull based mm"... They should just make it so in league play you continue your progression and continue to rank up that way people who want those kinds of games can go teir and still be working toward teir unlocks/prestige.

And in casual they should just pair you up randomly.

So make a casual play list i.e no skill based matchmaking. Then make a competitive playlist where skill based match making is going on. Not hard. It does divide the community a tad but it go e people options.

To the op. I have to try my best just to stay above 1.0. In all seriousness I love the way it is. I get your point in wanting to occasionally smash the hell out of people like me. I have to play combat training to do that.

I see the lobbies your looking for daily. 1.5 kd, and 250 spm is rare for me to see.

One of my friends is very much like you. Occasionally he joins me for some breakdown time.

There is no shame in having lower stats. In fact, would you rather pull a 1 k/d against 'noobs' or settle for a 0.8 k/d against randoms?

In my opinion, there would be more achievement in the latter because you are facing tougher players. At least this gives you a clear reflection of where you stand in the community. I can't see a benefit to anyone having their stats skewed by skill-based matchmaking. It effectively 'buffs' the poor players as they are only playing other poor players and 'nerfs' the good players as they only play good players.

Logically, you can see it from the dev's POV as they want to cater for the inexperienced masses, but it is so frustrating that it has to be at the expense of the people who have played and supported the game for years.

I played a lot of HQ when I first started and stuck to the nuketown playlist because I knew the map and I could count on getting 40-80 kills per game which means more EXP and a higher SPM (380-400 range)

I then go and play TDM where the game is much slower and your kills are limited by several factors. All of a sudden SPM drops to (280).

It is something that can be manupliated.

2) It chooses skill over connection, which basically breaks the game. There is a huge connection advantage, whoever gets it wins.

3) Parties - If you are an outlier in a party you are going to have a hard time. If you are a support player (low skill) in a high skill party you are going to have the fight for your life. If you are a high skill player in with other low skilled players and it keys in on your SPM you are going to have to cover for 5 under skilled teammates. I have also on several occasions been in a party of 4 high skilled players and been matched (as teammates) with people that have no situational awareness what-so-ever. I am actually quite sure my 2 year old nephew could play better or as well as some of these people. All of this is done to "balance things out".

4) Rage quitting - Because every match is a constant struggle and the fact that connection issues are so bad. When someone realizes they don't have the connection they leave. It happens all the time I would go as high as to say one out of every third match the host leaves because of the connection disadvantage.

For the majority of the population this is a social experience. We are not playing league play for a reason. We are not looking for competition we are playing for fun. I can't socialize because I only have time to call something out then move on to the next call out. This leads to yelling and arguements which makes me put down the game. This is not my job, that is stressful enough. I don't need to add the stress of playing MLG like matches every weekend when I am trying to relax.

I don't know, I like the skill based matchmaking in this game. Yes, my connection suffers as a result sometimes, but I do like being kept on my toes, as it were, in TDM (The playlist I play most by myself).

In the older CoDs, I could go around with anything (I do actually mean anything) and probably pull off a win and positive K/D. In WaW, I would use a FG42 with Double Tap, MW2 I would sometimes use a Thermal Rapid fire MP5K and in BO1, Rapid fire 20 round SMG's were the norm. In BO2, I can't do that as often (Still able to run around with semi-auto pistols for lulz)

For reference, for the past 3 CoD games, I've pulled a 1.3 K/D. I am by no means a fantastic player, but by the end of BO1 I could often get a Blackbird with a Mac-11/Kiparis Rapid Fire.

Unfortunately public matches are intact based in "skill". Vondahaar himself stated it on Twitter.

I decided to test it myself...This past weekend I created a dummy Live account (using the free 2 day pass that came with the game). I played a few FFA using only the crossbow. After about 5 games my KD was 0.25 and SPM was like 50. what can I say I'm not good with the crossbow :)

After that I played a few games of TDM and Kill Confirmed. The players in those lobbies had significantly lower KD / SPM than the people I usually play against.

I suspect that "Skill Based MM" has been implemented to make the game more accessible for:

Brand new players

Part-time players

Casuals

Children

Tricksh*tting morons/general retards

Remember the above customers form the vast bulk of the COD player population. Under the previous MM system such players would regularly reside at the bottom or middle of the end match results. Normally this would be a sign that one needs to get better at the game but the reality is many are simply not willing to put in the time/effort to get better. Enter "Skill Based MM", such players are now locked in a safe little bubble away from the big bad COD daddies. The result is they are more likely to enjoy the game with less pressure/requirement to improve. Under the previous system they would simply get pounded regularly and potentially lose interest in the game, but not any more. Skill Based MM is a very effective method for increasing casual customer retention for future DLC sales by making the game more accessible. From a business perspective it makes sense and it also allows new but dedicated gamers to progress up the skill ranks more progressively if they choose to better themselves.

But how do I feel about this MM system? Personally, I actually don't mind it much. I'm currently sitting at around 350-400spm with a 1.9something KD (significantly lower KD from past CODs) so I get grouped with a lot of hard chargers. And you know what...it actually feels much more rewarding to come out top of these matches. However I am experiencing MW3 style BS regularly so if Skill Based MM definately IS affecting connectivity significantly then Treyarc have indeed sold out the hardened playerbase which is very sad. Have Treyarc themselves confirmed it affects matchmaking quality?